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Squash team gagged over selection drama

Paul Mulvey

Australia's squash team have been gagged and told not to talk about the selection turmoil which could derail its Commonwealth Games doubles campaign.

Ryan Cuskelly awkwardly teamed up with Matt Karwalski in their first doubles match in Glasgow on Tuesday, days after his original teammate and good friend Zac Alexander slammed the appeal process which forced him out of the team.

Alexander said morale in the team was shattered and that Cuskelly did not want to play with Karwalski, who won a last minute appeal to oust the Queenslander from the team after he had already checked into the athletes village.

"Ryan and I would have killed for each other. Now Ryan doesn't even want to step foot on the court," Alexander told Fairfax media last week.

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Cuskelly, however, was coy about his best mate's comments.

"That's not my article, so I'm not going to make any comment there," Cuskelly said after he and Karwalski easily accounted for Sri Lanka 11-3 11-4.

Team section manager Gordon Young immediately intervened when the sensitive subject came up.

"That's off limits, that's what I've been directed to tell you guys," Young told the Australian media.

Cuskelly and Karwalski looked uncomfortable together before taking the court at Scotstoun and there was very little interaction between the pair during and after the match, despite the easy victory in a touch over 15 minutes.

While clearly disappointed not to be playing with Alexander, Cuskelly said he'd moved on.

"He's a good mate of mine. It's just unfortunate, it's the way things go, we just get on with it. We're all professional. It's all good," he said.

Despite the turmoil, Karwalski believes he and Cuskelly can develop into a medal winning partnership.

"We've worked things over, you can see it's working well for us now," he said.

"The combination's coming together and moving forward. We'll be looking forward to having some strong performances," he said.

And he's determined to put the drawn out appeal behind him.

"It doesn't really matter now. It's all in the past. We've got to move forward and play the Commonwealth Games, both of us," he said.

In Australia's other doubles match on Tuesday David Palmer and Cam Pilley easily dispatched Jersey in straight games.